The Declaration Philosophy: Part III – The protection of rights
By Linda A. Prussen-Razzano
web posted July 28, 2003
A second frightening trend in American culture is the propensity
to slap the label of "Right" onto every cause, product, or other
trivial circumstance, in an awkward attempt to justify its
existence, score selling points, or lend legitimacy to one's claims.
The same is true for privileges, necessities, and other constructs
of Society.
This trend should be rejected at every possible turn.
Rights, by their very essence, are freedoms inherent to an
individual. They are not products, services, or other goods.
Political groups, social groups, or manufacturers who promote
their causes, products, or services by using the terms "Rights" do
a grave disservice to society. Perhaps the most dangerous of
these are politicians, who insist that people have the Right to
decent medical care, the Right to decent housing, the Right to
education, etc.
None of these is true.
What people do have, instead, is the Right to freely pursue
decent medical care, decent housing, and a good education. The
onus is on the individual to obtain these things through the free
exercise of their Rights and within the constructs of society. The
onus is not on society to provide them.
There is a distinct, but critical difference.
The purpose of government is to protect the Rights of individuals
from infringement by others: be they neighbors, persons in
position of authority, or foreign sources. The government is
empowered to defend of our Rights and must exercise extreme
care in all levels: legislatively, judicially, and through the executive
branch. Each time a person's Rights are infringed, the forces of
the government are sought to correct that infringement and
restore the free exercise of one's Rights.
Each of our Rights comes with responsibilities, but they also
come with an interesting socio-political dichotomy: for each Right
we exercise, we empower the government to protect it. If we
confer upon privileges, necessities, and other constructs of
Society the status of "Rights," we empower the government to
protect them.
For example: if we claim we have a "Right" to decent medical
care and Society does not challenge this claim, we will empower
the government to monitor medical care, demand medical care,
or provide medical care. This constitutes a power shift from the
individual to the government and from the doctors to the
government. It also draws assets from one class of individuals to
another class of individuals.
Medical care is a service, provided by medical personnel as their
means of pursuing happiness, ensuring their ability to live, and
offering them a certain level of personal and societal liberty. It,
like countless other examples, is not an inherent freedom. While
society would be better served if each person were healthy,
living in a decent home in a safe neighborhood, and educated to
the best of their abilities, claiming these things, and others, as
"Rights" only serves to erode the very freedoms so necessary to
our humanity.
If we view our current government through this filter, we will
recognize how far it has deviated from its original charge, and
now powerful it has grown over the last 100 years. Further, we
will acknowledge how, on so many different levels, it infringes on
our Rights with our blessings.
Hence, we should exercise the greatest possible care in claiming
any future "Rights," lest they continue to expand the power of
government and diminish the power of the individual.
Linda Prussen-Razzano is frequent contributor to Enter Stage
Right and a number of other online magazines.
Enter Stage Right -- http://www.enterstageright.com